Good Morning, Valentine
by Upeasterner
Summary: Valentine's Day, 1969 ends the angst as Jonathan inadvertently marries the ghost and Mrs. Muir


There comes a moment in every soap opera when the tension – "Will they? Won't they?" – has to end.

_UK Independent on marriage of Carla Bruni to French President Nikolai Sarkozy_

There comes a moment in every soap opera when the tension – "Will they? Won't they?" – has to end.

_UK Independent on marriage of Carla Bruni to French President Nikolai Sarkozy_

He squatted by the fire, idly prodding its graying embers into a brief, ephemeral orange that quickly faded to ash. Time for another log. Outside, the wind shrieked off the Atlantic Ocean, hurling stinging sleet and snow at Gull Cottage's windows, rapidly fogging the inside of the panes as temperatures fell precipitously into the upper teens. From forty degrees to zero before 2 a.m., mused the Captain. Time to trim sails as the electricity sputtered out, flashed briefly back to life, and then surrendered with an abrupt groan.

Daniel Gregg, fond of pressing the advantages of a simpler past, was not pleased with loss of this most useful link to modernity. The old ways were not always the best. Power probably wouldn't be restored for several days. The downside of building a ship on a cliff. They would all be reduced to sleeping in front of the upstairs fireplace in this room, blast, robbing him of the few intimate moments he did have with the first and only true love of his existence. Her fault, though. Carolyn had ignored his suggestion to buy a Franklin stove for exactly such contingencies. In his day, no respectable seaside Maine home was without one. This lady of the house had passed too many winters in tropical Philadelphia.

He remembered very well the Blizzard of 1854, when he huddled in the very same spot in the bed where Mrs. Muir -- or Carolyn, as she saucily preferred to be called -- lay comfortably curled beneath the down comforters he' d piled onto her sleeping form hours earlier. The Captain wondered with great interest which flannel nightgown she'd chosen to preserve and encase her body heat. He imagined the soft fabric twisting upwards around her body, upwards towards her hips and exposing the all-too-imaginable.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, before striding abruptly to the telescope. Belay that thought and its logical conclusion, he rumbled to himself. He was caught in a mess of his own making, not by the laws of spectral physics but by half-truths of his own invention. Cocky, arrogant presumptuous lies about his inability to touch or be touched. They seemed perfect at the time, early last fall, when out of the blue he realized he could not, well, live without her. Clearly she'd emerged the victor for primacy of Gull Cottage and he whose stern presence and commanding voice ruled every deck he'd ever trod now lived in fear of upsetting the delicate ballast they'd established through endless arguments, long walks on the beach, and surreptitious looks at his portrait and her figure.

He'd never imagined a woman could so pleasantly undermine his never-to-be-questioned authority. That first afternoon when they shared Madeira in the wheelhouse, her bare feet curled provocatively beneath her on the settee, a smile as wide as the setting sun, he knew he was irrevocably smitten. There was nothing he would do to risk losing her. He was drowning in emotions he'd never experienced in a tempest of feeling for a woman who laughed at his temper squalls and smiled indulgently at his bluster. It never occurred to the Captain that she felt the same, haunted by the same fear she could lose him in a fit of 19th-century morality or by inadvertently trodding on his own lines in the sand. He simply wanted to woo her with more than words and well-intentioned gifts from sea chests unopened for a hundred years.

He fussed and fumed his way to the telescope, spinning it in frustration. The cabin glowed and logs sparked noisily, phoenix flames glowing warmth back into the room. Now irreparably bound by the lies he'd told her about his physicality last fall, he stared fiercely through fogged up windows at the gale outside.

"Good morning, Valentine."

Startled, he turned to see Carolyn lying on her side, head on her outstretched arm, smiling warmly from her cocoon of blankets.

"Madam," he sputtered.

"Carolyn," she rejoined. "I appreciate the extra logs but there is more you could do to warm this cabin."

Unsure of her meaning, he strode to the fireplace and unsheathed the poker, stoking the flames into an even stronger blaze. It wasn't possible. Avast, belay, blast and, hope? He knew her well enough to realize she wasn't toying with him.

"Carolyn, I've checked on the children and Martha, added extra blankets and otherwise ensured their continued comfort at least until breakfast."

He seated himself awkwardly on the sofa. She stared at him like a cat, eyes unblinking. Damn his guilty heart.

"Daniel," she began softly. "I saw you carry Jonathan upstairs from the parlor last night when you thought we'd both drifted off over popcorn. Is there something you'd like to share with me besides your cabin?"

His glance met hers. "That I'm a liar?" he blurted quickly. The silence was hardly companionable. It glowed, and burned like the dancing flames. Her glance remained unbroken, and he felt himself falling even deeper into her emerald eyes.

"Perhaps a white liar. But a very handsome one at that. You know," she said, barely audible over the roaring fire, "you don't exactly owe me an apology for doing everything you considered necessary to keep things on an even keel. But the time has come for truth. For both of us."

Suddenly, she was crying. He couldn't believe what he was hearing or seeing. She sat up, revealing a red, satin nightgown with spaghetti straps falling conveniently off her bare shoulders.

"I love you," she whispered through her tears. "Please come to bed."

The morning dawned, rosy like the dying fire. Somehow electricity fought its way back to life in the early hours, warming the house and its occupants just as two of them drifted finally off to sleep.

Around 7, Jonathan and Candy burst through their unlocked doors. Stunned by the sight of the sleeping couple, their mother wrapped tightly in the Captain's bare arms, they tiptoed sneakily to the head of the bed. Suddenly awake, the Captain feigned sleep. What else could he do? He couldn't sit up and face them, broad-chested and naked, sputtering defensively over their mother's sleeping body at the two children he suddenly realized he loved almost as much as their mother. Fortunately, Carolyn seemed oblivious to their presence. The Captain smiled to himself, face nuzzled deeply in her hair. At least he'd done right by her earlier this morning, more than making up for the months he'd wasted in a morass of needless morality and guilt. He sensed, more than heard, Jonathan peer adoringly at his mother's face.

"I told you he'd marry her for Valentine's Day," he heard the lad whisper matter-of-factly to Candy. "Claymore must have come over after we went to bed. It's a Valentine surprise for us. Captain Gregg's gonna be our dad."

He felt Carolyn suddenly stiffen, and realized she was trying to suppress a giggle. Fortunately, Candy regained her composure. "I guess we'll have to make two breakfastes instead of just one, for mom."

"Captain Gregg doesn't like pancakes," Jonathan whispered. "Let's get out of here and ask Martha what he likes…I think they're naked. Gross."

They left silently, pulling the door quietly shut behind them just in time, as Carolyn rolled to face the Captain, burying her face in his hairy chest, shaking with convulsive laughter. "We ought to be upset about this, my dear," he whispered. "Caught inflagrante delicto."

"But not outside the bonds of holy matrimony," Carolyn smiled. "Please tell me you meant everything you said last night, I mean this morning, because I think Jonathan just married us."

"I think I've got an emerald ring around here somewhere, something good enough to convince Martha and big enough to set all the Schooner Bay biddies gossiping."

"Really," she replied, her hand moving invitingly down his side. "Good morning, Valentine."


End file.
